Dream Country
by Pretty Witty Belle
Summary: His fear, had let love slip through his fingers. His fear had kept him from stopping her. It was all such a sticky thing, love, and fate. A mess of broken hearts and dreams, but as well as being a sticky thing, love and fate is something undeniable.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. I merely adore and create drama for them. Enjoy!

* * *

"I think…you should give me a blow-job." The man spoke, cheeky grin as he flipped through his book, eyes glancing backwards from where he laid on the couch, an awkward stare of a fantastic view.

"Sorry," the woman spoke, a defiant hip twisted outward, holding a pallet in one hand, brush in the other, nose wrinkled and brows furrowed as she stared at the canvas growing with color, "You forfeited that right when you married me." She shifted her weight, touching her knees together a moment before lifting the lightly dabbed brush to the painting, adding a miniscule amount of azure. Behind her came her husband's hissing whine, she could hear the pages of his book flitter-flutter shut, tossing the thing to the glass coffee table.

"If I had known that, I wouldn't have married you!" He rolled to his stomach, arms folding over the end of the smooth, darkly colored leather of their couch, watching her work in his shirt, and only in his shirt, falling just short enough to show that supple line of her rear-end. A terribly enticing view.

"Oh, yeah, Eric, that'll work." She rolled her eyes, continuing those gentle dabs, "I should've never married an American boy, should've listened to my grandfather, stayed in Japan, become a doctor, or teacher, or something." She smirked at her canvas, feeling the man bristle behind her, tensing at that playful jab.

"Hey, now, Kagome! That's not fair! You tell me you prefer Japan over New York City?" He began to whimper, "…Besides, if I –were- Japanese, your grandfather –still- wouldn't like me! Nothing's good enough for his only granddaughter." He pouted, hand rushing through the shaggy, unkempt spikes of honey-hued hair, sitting upright.

"You're probably right—." A shuffling through their shared loft's mail slot caught her eye and ear, "Get the mail, huh?" She turned around, facing the man, pretty, dreamy sapphire eyes catching his glittering green. Quickly, he lay back down, lazing out as if a cat. "Can't, far tooooooo tired." Eric feigned a yawn.

Kagome rolled her eyes, setting down her tools and shuffling towards the door, swaying her hips with a little more 'oomph' than usual, smirking at her husband's catching eye. She made sure to keep her legs straight as she bent over, extra moments spent to gather the few pieces of mail that they'd received.

"Anything good?" She heard as she rose to a standing position.

"Bills, bills, and bills." She turned forward, slinking towards the couch, taking a seat atop his stomach as she continued to file through the letters and notices, "Oh, a postcard from my mom, and Souta."

"Have you called them to give them our new number? You know, it's been over a week and half since we've settled in here," Eric asked with breathless amusement.

Kagome was sheepish, "No, guess that's why they're writing, I get so caught up in painting," she excused herself, face falling white as she read the quick scribbling of sad characters, "Oh…" she began, furrowing her brows.

"What's the matter?" Eric reached his hand upward, brushing those gentle digits across the smoothness of her lily-white cheek, "Everything alright at home?"

She leaned against his touch, eyes bubbling with salt and water, "I, uh, guess you won't have to be worrying about my granfather liking you, anymore…"

The funeral had come and gone, Eric had returned home, returned to his business, his bookshop and writing, and his so loved wife had chosen to remain behind, to stay and spend a few extra days with her family. To mourn with her mother and brother, the loss of the family patriarch, and it was quick as old habits returned, old routines coming back to what they had always been. Souta was no longer a child, a freshman at the University and she was no longer the young teenager of her youth, no, she was a married woman, now. Only a year, but married nonetheless, hopefully soon to add mother to that title, and breakfast was the same. Loving, and irritating all at once.

"Souta, stop it!" She glared to her younger brother, "I'm still bigger than you!"

"Hardly!" He cried, mother eating peacefully between her children, cat sleeping on her lap with a gentle, pleased purring, "I'm a whole foot taller than you, now!"

"I hardly see how that's the point! If I kick you in the balls, I'll be taller once you fall to your knees!"

"Kagome!" She heard her mother scold. Kagome settled to quietly, icily glare at her brother. Apparently, somehow, someway, glaring said to Souta, 'Throw a pickled egg at me. I dare you.' And, oh, he did, egg flying straight and true, landing squarely onto her chest.

"Oh, that's it!" Kagome sprang to her feet, leaping over the table to the long since running boy, flying past the screen door, approaching him into the backyard, gaining speed as he headed to the old well, that well she hadn't of thought about in…years. His taunting fell on deaf ears as she halted in front of duel screen doors, turning her glance, a moment's flashback causing her head to pound, her ears to flush with blood.

She stood, strong and straight, a powerful young thing of eighteen, and she stared him down, glare mighty but voice that sweet, patient tone, "What do you want from me, Inuyasha? Since I was fifteen, I've been waiting for you to leave me. I've been waiting for you to choose her." Her heart was broken, and he could see it all over her face. 

"_I…I don't know, Kagome." The hanyou dropped his head in a sort of defeated resignation, "Please, don't go." He was too afraid to look at her, too afraid to look up, and see her gone through the well that they stood against, twilight lighting their moment, their 'here and now'._

"_I'll visit, Inuyasha. But, Kaede has the jewel; Naraku's dead and gone. I have to get back home, to my life. I-I want to stay, but, I'm not a little girl anymore, and I have to be realistic. I have to be honest for myself, and for you."_

_Those pooling, gold-stained irises finally glance up, remaining shaded behind the falling of those silver-tinged bangs, "What do you mean?"_

_Kagome took in a desperate sigh, "I am in love with you, Inuyasha." There was a moment's pause before she said it again, "I'm in love with you, and being here hurts. Like I said, I'll visit." She reached forward, and rather than removing the fragile beaded necklace, she ripped it apart, letting the azure stones fall at their feet._

"_Kagome…" She could feel his want to touch her, and she could feel his exercised restraint._

"_What do you want from me?" Her voice was that ever gentle sound, like a butterfly sweeping through spring._

"_I…nothing." She drew back from him, leaning herself back against the well, fingers grinding into the splintering old wood._

"_I thought so." I can't wait forever, she told herself, "I can't waste my heart," she spoke out loud, "I'll visit," she lied._

Her fingers had deftly spread the doors open, and in her dream, in the midst of her flashback, she'd walked an oh, so familiar path, standing just before the well, fingers grinding into that splintering wood, just like so long ago. She felt nervous. Had it been so long? Had it been seven years, already? Of course, and things were so different. She'd left the day she'd returned to her world, for school in New York, for the American Ballet Academy, even though she'd only started dancing at seventeen, she'd a passion for it, whether she was good or not. She was over being academic; she'd wanted to be an artist, of any kind. If he had said something different, if he had said he'd wanted her, she would have never left him ever again, but he didn't, and she never once would resolve herself to pushing him, that wasn't fair, but she new it was true. She new she couldn't wait anymore, she couldn't resolve to waiting any longer, and resenting him.

Perhaps, she thought, perhaps, just maybe, she should visit, only for a moment, maybe to see if she could find someone, anyone. To see how everyone was, after all, she'd cried so many night, she missed them all so much, Sango, Kaede, Miroku, and Shippou.

Kagome was brave and she leaped into the well.

* * *

A/N: A little background on this idea: I love drama. Desperate, hopeless drama. I also loved Inuyasha when it was on, but I always wanted to see a bit more from either Inuyasha or Kagome. Cute only works for me for so long, and I wanted to take a more realistic approach to the feelings I would imagine someone with unrequited love for so long would have, even in such an unrealistic world and setting. I wanted to make a passionate, highly emotionally fueled story. I love the very idea of such a story. Something mature, and full of spit, and gravel, love and bitter-sweet possibilites, anger, betrayal, broken-hearts. The whole nine-yards. As I said previously, I wanted to write something terribly desperate, something that every chapter I write that you, the reader gets to see, you feel broken for the characters. A story you can both root for the characters, and hate them.

I know I sound pretentious, and I'm sure some of you readers won't like what I've turned the characters into, and if that's the such, I humbly request that you give me your ideas in a constructive manner. I always take them to heart. Flame, if it makes you happy, but if you have an idea or opinion, say it. I want to hear it. I'm writting this for fun, and entertainment.

Oh, and, thanks so much for reading. :)


	2. Chapter 1

There was a pounding in her head. Great, and grand, eating away the chitter-chatter of fluttering birds in shivering sunlight, the only light cast down into the drab and dreary bottom of the old, muddy well. Beyond the throbbing in her head, she could feel the throbbing of her heart. It drowned away even the heaviest sounds as she began a steady, carefully climbed descent upwards, batting and brushing at the overgrowth that barred her way to the exit.

She emerged with a vicious tug, yanking herself up, over, and through to the other side of the well, past the brush and leaves, onto the lush grass, green and glistening in the sun of such a brilliant azure sky.

She took a moment or so to steady herself, tripping slightly by the applied force even she didn't realize she'd exerted in her heaving clime. A small curse fell past her lips, as she finally tripped a bit forward, landing squarely on her knees. She could feel the stain of that lush, cursed grass, but pettiness melted away in minutes as she turned, rolling back onto her legs to sit over dirtied knees, eyes glancing back, and it hurt her heart, to see the state the well had been left in. Over-grown and alone, as if no one had visited or tended it in years. She rose to her feet.

Kagome's gentle irises bounced to and fro, walking a familiar path, the first time she'd walked it in years, one of the only times she ever walked the path alone, without a hanyou at her side, chiding and scolding her for taking to long, like she always did. A ghost smile flashed over her lips.

It was early morning, gentle breeze kissing at the sweet features of her lithe frame; speed steadying as she came upon a village. –The- village, steady pace sped to a run. It had changed, of course, bigger homes, larger spread, more rice-patties, more children, more hustle and bustle, but it still smelled the same. Still smelled oddly like…home.

So caught up in her reverie, she hadn't noticed the children playing in the path before her until a moment almost too late, skittering to halt, dust and gravel flying up about and around her. A young boy jumped to his feet, eyes and brows furrowed with worried irritation and he screeched, "Hey, lady! Watch out! You almost ran over my sister!" He leapt to the teensy girls beside him, a little thing of two, maybe three, stark contrast to the boy who could be anywhere from six to nine.

"Oh, my, I'm so sorry." Kagome bowed to the little boy, enticing grin as she eyed the children, boy holding the girl in her arms, ebon hair and sea-storm eyes for both of them.

"Yeah, you should me!" The boy continued to rant, catching Kagome off guard. She backed up.

"You're really strange looking! Where are you from? The carnival?" All full of spit and gravel, the boy whined onward before a shrill scolding caught his guard, a mother's voice, strong and sweet.

"Mako, you apologize right now! That's not how you speak to an adult!" A woman came rushing up towards the children, huffing slightly, holding her swelling, pregnant belly, eyes locked with daggers to the little boy, not yet taking notice of the starkly perched Kagome.

It took a moment, but only that for recognition to kick in, the shrieking woman, Kagome knew her! That long, brunette-mane, gentle twitch of sweet, pink lips, those sea-storm eyes, "…Sango?"

The mother's eyes snapped forward, angry brows relaxing into something of gentle wonder and utter shock, "No, it can't be." Those pink petals spoke, "Kagome?" She asked, as if lost in a dream.

The dream-figure leaped forward, grasping with desperate limbs at Sango, "Oh, I didn't realize how much I've missed you until this very moment! Oh my God, I'm so sorry I left without a word!" She pushed the woman back at shoulder length, "And, oh my gosh! You're pregnant! I can't believe you're having a baby!"

Sango was not so frantic at first, but those salty tears of surprise bubbled at her eye-rims, "Oh, Kagome," she whispered to her friend, "I never thought I'd see you ever again."

A little boy's voice chimed in, "Mama, do you know this weirdo?"

* * *

"I married Miroku about a year after you'd gone away. I had so wanted you to be there, but I understood. I think we all did." Sango spoke over steaming tea, flatly sat across from the cross-legged Kagome, listening intently to all she'd missed.

"I had Mako less than a year later, he's such a little brat sometimes," she spoke with a mother's fond glance to her children, "Suzu five years after that, and number three is on the way." A hand was placed to rest over her growing belly, "But, Kagome, you look amazing, you're taller than I remember you, all skinny and filled out!" Sango doted, "We all still live here, in the village, I'll take you to see Kaede after a bit of rest, you'd never believe how much energy being a mom takes out of you, and pregnant to boot!"

Kagome beamed with gentle adoration, before tentative lips dared pry further, "And, what about..?"

Sango interjected, "Shippou? He's fine, older, a bit wiser, he loves to play with the little ones, and he still talks about you all the time, misses you a fair bit. Miroku, him, and Inuyasha are down at the river, fishing up something for dinner, right now."

Kagome was sure she could –hear- her heart stop. Sango reached forward, soft fingertips touching the top of her friend's hand, "-He- missed you, too, you know?" Kagome knew exactly who was being referred to.

"Well, how is he?"

Sango took a heavy breath, "Surviving. He comes and goes, disappears for weeks, even months at a time. He's, uh…he's better, than when you first left. He keeps himself in one piece, always makes sure to visit when he can, but, he's still kind of' broken."

"…And, Kikyou?" Another cautious pursing of her lips.

"No one's heard anything about her in five or six years. Inuyasha turned her away, no one's seen her since."

Something about that statement just…hurt, and she couldn't figure out what it was, but she had to move, to get up, and take a breather. For a moment, Kagome was sure she was going to suffocate, "Sango, I'm gonna' go outside for just a second, I'm sorry." The girl scrambled to her legs, diving past the hut shade, walking in any direction, hand over her eyes, bangs kissing her cheeks, face down and hidden. She propelled herself with no course but was halted as her tiny frame thudded against a heavy chest.

Kagome recoiled, whining out a soft 'ow' before eyes dared glance up in apology, a stunning sight of familiar face, "Inuyasha." His name was but a whisper on her lips.

He was nothing like she remembered him, and just alike all at the very same moment. His shoulders had broadened; tan darkened, hair a longer, silkier silver, and eyes a more devilish golden. He stood sternly poised before her, fire-rat robes hanging at his waist, bare-chested and beautiful with fish in one hand, a pole in the other, and she was sure his surprise at seeing her would match her surprise with him.

"Kagome?" Her spoken name was but a question passing his lips. Could it be her? Really her? She was a taller thing, and rail-thin, wiry arms shown at the leisure of her sleeveless, black top, dark jeans hung low over razor-sharp hips, straight leggings bunching at ballet-black slippers, hair a wild, straight mess of a bun that once was, side-swept bangs over a make-up less face.

"Kagome?" He asked again.

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A/N: More to come! R + R, please:) 


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